Acts 6:1-9; 7:2a, 51-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

No one likes to be excluded from groups. It doesn’t feel good to be left out, especially for silly reasons like looks or personal characteristics. We all recognize that this type of exclusion is harmful and degrading. However, not all exclusion is bad. The nature of exclusion is that it’s necessary to have anything at all. Groups are regularly created for specific reasons which must exclude all who don’t fit within their purpose. For instance, there can’t be a Chess club if Chess wasn’t the exclusive game that was played.

For this is always the case with us. We don’t like being excluded from anything but are just fine if the ones being excluded are everyone else. We treat exclusivity as good if it’s for our benefit, but bad if it’s to our detriment.

In our Gospel this week, we hear Jesus make this very claim of exclusion. “No one comes to the Father except through me,” John 14:6b. Jesus has excluded all other religions and philosophies in these few words. To Jesus, they are not to be placed in the same category as himself. There’s one “exclusive” way to the Heavenly Father, to God, and that’s through Jesus and Jesus alone. Jesus isn’t going to let us mix his teaching with any other and think we can still make it.

It should be no surprise to us that many in our world complain about the exclusivity of Christianity. They don’t like being left out. None of us do. But what many don’t realize is that it was us first who were exclusive. It was Adam and Eve, who by their sin, sought to exclude God from their lives. It is us still who seek to push God to the outside, leave him out in the cold, exclude him from every part of our world. 

For so we must consider the exclusive nature of God. If everything or everyone is God than there would be no god at all. If all ways lead to God, then no one way truly exists. For God had to exclude from himself all so-called “gods” from our life so that He would be the true God of all people. For this is why Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” John 14:6a. Salvation can only come through one way if it’s to be salvation at all… and that’s Jesus. Jesus has come to die on the cross, be buried in the tomb, and rise from the dead so that he can be our exclusive savior. He’s not the savior for a few, but for all people! He alone has excluded from us our sins by his forgiveness. He has put away from us our idolatry and false beliefs. Only by faith in Jesus is truth and life found. So, praise be to God that through Jesus, he has opened to us the way, the truth, and the life eternal!

Pastor Sorenson

Prayer:

O God, You make the minds of Your faithful to be of one will. Grant that we may love what You have commanded and desire what You promise, that among the many changes of this world our hearts may be fixed where true joys are found; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.